The woman’s arm hit the floor with a thump. Her hair was black. Her skin was dark. Bright pink lipstick was smeared across her full lips and her chin. An old thin scar above one eyebrow cut almost to her scalp. Her eyes looked as if dying had surprised her and it had hurt. A lot. Her black dress with white polka dots was caught up around her waist, and her torn black bikini underpants dangled uselessly from one hip.

“Carmen?” I put out one hand as I walked toward her, as though I could help her up or shake her awake.

“Junkie. Must have o.d.’d.” Lupe knelt beside the body. She pointed to a needle on the floor between the woman’s hand and the wastebasket.

Was I going to have to call the police? Did I have to tell them about Monica Fullbright? “What do we do now?” I must have said aloud.

“Get a drink.” Lupe pulled the woman’s skirt down, covering her nakedness.

CHAPTER FOUR

The place looked more like the bowling alley on the Titanic than a cocktail lounge. From the far end of the room came the click of a sporadically hit pool ball, the sound of one guy passing time. I picked my way carefully across the dark water-soaked carpeting and around a couple of broken pinball machines that blocked the way to the bar. Three red baby spotlights suspended among the exposed wires on the ceiling shone down, making the fat man behind the bar look like a braised maraschino. The toothpick in his mouth snapped to attention as Lupe climbed onto the barstool, her red knit miniskirt riding dangerously close to that which is referred to by the poets as “the mound of Venus.”

“Martini, straight up. Double olives. Two of them,” she said, laying her purse on the bar and settling herself without seeming to notice his oily leer.

I didn’t think she was old enough to drink. But since I met Monica Fullbright, all of my perceptions had seemed questionable. The jukebox had blown a speaker, or along with everything else I was losing my hearing. The sound was cranked up as high as it could go, but it kept fading in and out. Bobby Darin was singing “Mack the Knife.” He sounded like a pygmy who was being strangled. My hands were sweating.